Why Derek Draper's web offering will be no match for Conservative Home

Morus

Exactly my thoughts - this is a mirror of the Blue Blog, not of ConHome.

Although I think there are some good one-man blogs from the Left, the only blog on the left that has the potential to match ConHome as an independent group effort that will provide a voice for independent-minded activists on its own basis is Liberal Conspiracy.

Obnoxio The Clown

I think the real problem they have is the depth of contributors, Derek Lammy for instance.

Woo ... that's gonna be fun to watch!

Derek Draper

Jesus, James. Why don't you wait and see how open we are. Also try and be a proper journalist annd look down the contributor's list - simon fletcher, stella creasy, jag singh and many many more will be independently minded i assure you. Also there are more contributors signing up daily and as they emerge your kneejerk "analysis" will seem even more misguided - but then, i am sure you will repost and apologise ;)

James Forsyth

Derek, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong. Best, James

Rhoda Klapp

I can't believe the freaks will abandon control of the message to any articulate commenter, not only conservative but also Labour dissenters. Impossible to imagine some left-wing equivalent of Verity (sorry, V) or the rest of us criticising the leadership. They will moderate themselves into a position of irrelevance.

David

Surely 'because Derek Draper is involved' is reason enough for it to suck?

John Backhouse

I rather think it was Guido who broke this James. Come, come.

Travis Bickle

The acid test is whether we see the birth of the Tory Troll, certainly enough of the Labour buggers around.

Somehow I think not.

molesworth 1

So THIS is T** I*********. You Bildebergers!

Morus

With respect Derek, it isn't that independents won't be involved, it's that senior institutional figures from the party will be from the start.

I genuinely wish you well with the project, but I am wary of how a Party-sponsored blog (even unofficially) could actually restrict the organic growth of Left-wing communities on the web.

All the best

Mildly interested

Derek Draper: "Jesus, James..."

Are you being gratuitously or only thoughtlessly offensive to Christians? Would you countenance a similar usage of Mohammed, or Allah, or Vishnu, or Shiva, or Guru Nanak, etc etc?

Nicholas

"Why don't you wait and see how open we are."

Because I'll be dead long before Hell freezes over Derek. When it comes to Lefties, "independent" is about as "independent" as the BBC - not much.

Lefties are adept at cloaking themselves as sane, reasonable, caring and compassionate types while they pump out the centre-left bilge and secretly plan the "further controls" necessary to build utopia in the shadow of Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot or Cousesceau.

Your website won't be about being open or encouraging "independent" political discourse; it will be a desperate attempt to counter the effective blogging of the right, to run damage control for your cabinet of all the talentless - your circus of clowns, to provide a vehicle for New Labour propaganda disguised as something else and to pump even more hot air into the balloon you all call master.

It will soon descend into the usual lefty psycho-babble garbage and bogus bonhomie designed to make people think Labour is the rightful destiny of Britain and that anyone to the right is the evil spawn of Satan. Before we know it you'll have TV celebrities, Geordie poets and sundry cheeky chappies spreading the good word as you try to re-live the sad, bad hallucination that we succumbed to in 1997.

Somehow I think your party might be over. You could always use the website as a clearing house to help each other find new jobs though. Share the wear of the Guardian sort of thing.

skooch

You know what, Derek?

I just wanted to post, a few minutes ago - re: Sarah Mulholland article - on your new website, and I was required (as is normal of course) to do the registration thingy.

But then had second thoughts.

I declined to give my information, and cancelled before posting. I am not at all sure what you'd do with the information....

So, good luck ...

skooch

...and I'm just an ordinary joe.

LiverpoolTory

I agree their should be lots of room for debate within the Tory party, however Labour was so thirsty for power 94-97, and then so desperate to hang on to power ever since it went a long way towards stifling dissent. It is remarkable that constituents represented by left-wing MPs such as Dennis Skinner and Jeremy Corbyn make up New Labour's core vote. A simple tribal hatred of the Tories will quash any true rebellion from them. By contrast, the Tories have lost sections of their core vote to everyone from UKIP to the Liberal Democrats. I don't know what the answer is other than they need to get them back. maybe IDS was right - Unite or die!

RW

Surely anything that restricts the organic growth of Left-wing communities, on the web or anywhere else, is to be applauded? They sound like some horrid disease, and Dr Draper is to be congratulated for helping to eradicate them, on all our behalf. Perhaps he will win the Nobel Prize for Social Medicine.

RW

I bet James is feeling pretty mortified by being accused of improper journalism by Derek Draper. Bear up, James old chap, this will pass. Time, they say, is a great healer.

Hoolio

I don't wish Draper any luck, in fact I hope that Draper's effort will cannibalize readers from LabourHome to the detriment of both of them.

Alexandrovich

From his post, Derek Draper knows how to use capital letters. So why drop them from the names he mentions, as well as first person singular?

Is it deliberately offensive? Am I reading too much into this or is there an ulterior motive?

Verity

So ... perhaps for the first time on Coffee House, we have a concensus.

Rhoda K - No offence taken.

Nicholas - Bravissimo!

Craig Strachan

Draper, Mandelson, Whelan, Gould...sounds very 1998.

Polly and Alice's mum

Frankly, if this is the sort of language we can expect from Derek Draper, I shall not be rushing to read his blog.
I agree with mildlyinterested - why the blasphemy, Derek?
It IS probably just thoughtless, that is probably how you all speak, but are you sceered of upsetting the muslims?
One of the advantages of coffeehouse is that people can give their opinions in a rational manner without using the language of the gutter, or upsetting those with religious beliefs.
Must try harder, Derek!.....although not on my account, because I wont be reading it.

catesby

Doesn't look too promising.

Imagine Roger Liddle as a blogger.
His 'Memo To....' column in the New Statesman a decade ago was the dullest political column in recorded history.

As for Jag Singh - I see Jag boasts of having worked for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

Good.

Both lost.

katabasis

"Jesus, James. Why don't you wait and see how open we are"

Yep - stroll on over James and be sure to click on the 'see trash items' link for the comments to see how "open" Draper et al are. The site's credibility is finished and it has barely been live for 24 hours.

Rhoda Klapp

The website is a trawl for personal data. Register, give them your email (and phone?) and be first in line for mails and texts to try to get you to turn out for elections, and pre-emptive strikes giving the govt line on the prescribed 'issue of the day according to the Brown Circle'.